We were nearly part of the Christmas Road Toll.

Hello,

This Christmas we travelled over 500km to spend a relaxing few days with Ainsley and Julian in Kalgoorlie. A lovely Christmas Lunch was cooked in the slow cooker. Time was spent in the pool playing board games and watching the Boxing Day Test. Things took a change when we drove home on Sunday. After having lunch at a Roadhouse in Southern Cross David took over the driving. David is our 17 year old P Plate driver son. David tried to overtake a four wheel drive towing a caravan and didn't allow enough time for the other four wheel drive and caravan that had just overtaken the first one when he saw a four wheel drive vehicle coming straight towards us. David panicked and drove straight onto the side of the road into the gravel at over 110km per hour (an estimate of his speed)we were heading straight towards the goldfields water pipeline which if we had hit it we would definitely not be here now. Somehow we got back onto the road and did a 360 degree turn at a very high speed. All I can remember is that it was very dusty and couldn't see where we were going or where the other vehicles were. We did another 360 degree turn and ended over the other side of the roadside going through scrub, I remember telling David to put on the brakes and helping turn the steering wheel because we were heading straight towards some trees. Thank God no-one was hurt Lucy was in terrible shock because she was behind David in the back seat she was closer to the pipeline and the thought of hitting that then being swung around really shook her up. I remember thinking we can't hit the pipeline or else we would have been dead. We all got out of this safely, our guardian angels were definitely looking after us. Thankfully no-one else was injured and managed to control their vehicles. Our drivers side of our car was smashed about and the two doors on that side we couldn't open although we managed with force to open the back door and get Lucy out. Our front tyre had blown and we replaced that with our spare. Thankfully people were kind enough to stop and help us and check that everything was OK. In fact one of the people who stopped was travelling with the RAC man who was from Merredin and was further back down the road. He came and checked out our car and followed us to Merredin. We stopped to refuel and check the air in our tyres at Merredin. The tyre pressure in the drivers side rear tyre was very low so this was corrected. Unfortunately this tyre blew 10km past Meckering when we were 30km from home. A phone call to the RAC and Gran who came to pick us up. Our car is now in the panel beaters. It certainly was not the way I wanted to end our Christmas break but thankfully we are all safe. Hopefully David has learnt a huge lesson and will not complain when he says I am nagging him about his driving. To all the Mum's and Dad's out there keep on telling your children to slow down and to have two hands on the wheel and anything else you need to pick up on with your Son's or Daughter's driving. We could have easily been part of the Christmas road toll and if David had killed anyone of us or the other people who were travelling on the road that day he would have been up on some very serious charges.

I hope everyone else had a safe and enjoyable Christmas and you didn't eat or drink too much.

Happy days.

Bev C